


The Lost Spirit

by EndlessStairway



Series: Tony's Thrall and Related Tales [6]
Category: Original Work, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Background - Freeform, But they're not in it yet, Found Family, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Loki's Kids, loki/tony stark - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-29
Updated: 2019-06-29
Packaged: 2020-05-30 19:56:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,913
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19410304
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EndlessStairway/pseuds/EndlessStairway
Summary: It’s quiet here, and dark. The spirit feels a longing to be in this place. A hunger for safety, for protection, although it knows it doesn't deserve such things. Despite that, the yearning draws the spirit deeper into the forest. The trees recognize one of their own, and draw aside their branches for the spirit to pass. The forest floor grows soft moss under its weightless feet. The tiny birds in the trees follow above, fluttering from branch to branch, singing their song of welcome and joy.The spirit was home, even if it didn’t know it yet.





	The Lost Spirit

**Author's Note:**

> You can all blame AliaMael for this, I take no responsibility :) Read the comments on ch50 of Loki's fate if you want the background

It’s quiet here, and dark. The spirit feels a longing to be in this place. A hunger for safety, for protection, although it knows it doesn't deserve such things. Despite that, the yearning draws the spirit deeper into the forest. The trees recognize one of their own, and draw aside their branches for the spirit to pass. The forest floor grows soft moss under its weightless feet. The tiny birds in the trees follow above, fluttering from branch to branch, singing their song of welcome and joy.

The spirit was home, even if it didn’t know it yet.

***

_ Stop complaining, sisters! It is close, I know it.  _ Jormuna parted the branches with her coils, peering through the shadows of the deep forest. She flicked her tongue out to taste the air, tilting her arrow-shaped head as she caught a flavor of what she sought.

“Easy for you to say,” Erla complained, trudging along in her wake, her walking stick trailing behind her. “One loop of your coils is ten steps for me, and twenty steps for Fenra!”

Fenra’s poked her head back onto the path, level with Erla’s shoulder. It was true, she did take twenty steps for ten of Erla’s, but that was because she would not keep to the path. Everywhere she looked were new things for her to discover, to bat around with her giant paws, to sniff and nibble at with her massive jaws. Despite her size, she was a baby still, and was surrounded by newness.

Jormuna rolled her head upside down at both of them.  _ It was better when I had no sisters,  _ she said, but it was clear that she didn’t mean it. She looped a coil around Erla and lifted her up. It was her new trick, and she managed to hold Erla off the ground for a few seconds before her concentration gave out. Erla fell through her semi-transparent body and thumped back to the ground.

“You are getting better at that,” Erla said, dusting herself off. She was impressed that the spirit-snake had progressed so far in channeling her powers.

_ Modir is teaching me,  _ Jormuna said, radiating smug pride.

Erla rolled her eyes. Jormuna's modir was Prince Loki, and he spent time with them all when he was able to visit the forest. His two children, Jormuna and Fenra, his husband Tony, his intimate relationship with the ranger, whatever that may be. Erla knew about it, they didn't hide it, but she didn't know what name to give it. Whatever it was, a thread connected them all, and that thread was Prince Loki. Even Erla herself had a place in his life, but she had no name for that either. She was no longer his page, she was something else now. It was a connection of choice, not of birthright as the others all shared.

Even so, when Jormuna called her ' _ sister',  _ in her secret heart Erla drew the connections between all of them. Jormuna and Fenra, and through them to Loki, Tony and to the ranger, the guardian of the forest spirits, who had taken her as his apprentice.

“What are we looking for anyway,” she asked, distracting herself from her pondering.

_ I don’t know, _ Jormuna unhelpfully supplied,  _ but there is something here. _

Fenra galloped past and flomped herself into a pile of pine needles, doing her best to solidify her shape and send them scattering around her. She was not impressed with Jormuna’s boasting either. Her modir spent time with her too, teaching her to control her shape. He filled her with magic until she glowed and left a trail behind her like a path of fireflies.

Erla froze, and the two spirits froze too, sensing her wariness at once. Erla raised her walking stick, as slow as a branch bending under snow, pointing into the dark shadows to their right, off the path. They glanced between each other, suddenly serious, all bantering gone.

Erla led the way, her stick raised in her hand. The ranger was teaching her how to care for the forest, how to protect it and welcome those who belonged, as well as how to deal with those who did not. Erla wasn’t sure what they would find, but she felt someone too. It was a vibration in the air that echoed in her chest, the inverse of her heartbeat, a noiseless breath, like someone holding back tears.

The three sisters left the path and moved as one, Fenra staying close to Erla’s side and Jormuna looped around them. Both spirits were so pale as to be almost transparent, hiding their true selves. If what they found belonged here, they did not want to scare it away.

They all saw it together. Faint and pale, a new spirit, huddled close to the roots of a soaring pine tree. The birds on the branches above sang as they approached, but the huddled spirit didn’t move.

_ It's exhausted, _ Jormuna observed, looping a coil into the small clearing, letting the rest of her long body trail behind.

Erla didn’t reply, lacking the ability to project her thoughts into her sisters’ heads as Jormuna did. She crouched down before the spirit, nervous. This would be her first rescue, although the ranger had told her about it. Some spirits came to the forest tired, exhausted as this one was, lacking the will to hold their shapes. They sought the protection of the forest instinctively, but they didn't know how to accept it. Jormuna and Fenra had both been such spirits, stripped of their physical form and taking their spirit forms too soon, when they were just babies. The ranger had saved them, and Erla was determined to save this one.

“You are safe here,” she murmured, her voice almost noiseless. She set her stick down, knowing that she didn’t need it. “Who are you?” The most important thing for a new spirit was to find their form. This spirit seemed to be a person, or what had been a person. It’s form was blurred and fading, but Erla could see feet and legs, a head hidden under wrapped arms. She waited.

_ Patience, Helujan. _

She could almost hear the ranger’s voice in her ear, standing side by side catching fish from the river, but talking about much more than fishing.

After Erla took three deep breaths, the spirit stirred. Its form steadied a little, and Erla saw that one of the hands wrapped around its head was skeletal, nothing but bones, while the other hand still had the appearance of flesh. The spirit raised its head, looking around blindly, not seeing the girl and the spirits right before it.

“Open your eyes,” Erla whispered, and the spirit blinked. It was still almost transparent, but now two eyes shone clear and bright, a gem-like turquoise color that Erla had never seen before.

“Who are you?” she asked again. She was concerned that the spirit’s hand still remained a skeleton, and half its face seemed the same. Bones showed where flesh should be, an eye socket, a cheek-bone, lips fading to reveal teeth.

The spirit stared at her, then looked at the snake and the huge wolf that flanked her. It seemed to fade again, huddled back into itself. “No one,” it said, “Go away, I’m no one.”

Erla sat down on the ground and crossed her legs. From habit she tucked the loose strands of her hair under her scarf, just to give her fingers something to do. The spirit watched her movements, tracking her hand with its glowing eyes.

“Where is your other hand?” it asked, suddenly curious, solidity coming to its form as it asked the question.

Erla held out her arms, the one ending in her hand and the one ending at her wrist. “I don’t have one,” she said simply, “I used to, but I got hurt and now I don’t”

The spirit looked at her arms, and then held out its own arms, blurred and fuzzy around the edges, but one ending in a hand like Erla’s, and the other just bones. “Is that what happened to me?” it asked, its voice soft.

Fenra snuck forward and sniffed at the spirit, at its Asgardian looking hand and its skeletal one. The wolf cub had not yet found a voice, and maybe she never would, but she could communicate clearly when she wanted to. She flopped down in the pine needles next the spirit, and rested her nose against its cheek. A soft glow formed as Fenra’s energy began to flow into the spirit, helping it stabilize and solidify its form.

_ Not too much, sister _ , Jormuna warned, and immediately the spirit pulled away from Fenra.

“What will happen?” it asked, alarmed, “Will I hurt you? You should stay away from me!”

Fenra tried to snuffle closer again but the spirit panicked. Its shape blurred and shifted as it scrambled backwards, ghostly feet scrambling through the pine needles without moving a single one.

Jormuna flicked her tail in front of Fenra, stopped her from following. The spirit would fade away entirely if it did not focus, and scaring it was the worst thing they could do.

“I will wait here,” Erla suggested, realizing that they were in over their heads. “You two should fetch your father.”

Jormuna rolled her head in acknowledgement, flicked her tongue out at the spirit one last time.  _ I agree, _ she said,  _ this one needs help. _

When it was just the two of them, the spirit curled back into the roots of the tree, trying to hide, eyes closing.

“Can you stay awake?” Erla asked, and the spirit opened its eyes again, the turquoise glow of them reflecting in the shadowy hollow they were in.

“I am Erla,” Erla said, then added, “Or Helujan, which means clever bird.” That was the name the ranger had given her, and she was growing to like it.

To her surprise, the spirit startled at that name. “Helujan,” it said, tipping its head to the side, as though thinking, “Helujan. I had a name once.”

Erla leaned forward, “Do you know what it was?” she asked eagerly. If the spirit could remember its name, it would have a foundation to attach to, to start to recover its strength.

It shook its head, fading again. “It doesn’t matter,” it said, “It wasn’t a good name. It was a name like me. Bad luck. Shameful. No good.” The small glow that Fenra had given the spirit was already gone, and it was transparent. The spirit looked at her, beautiful eyes in its half-skeletal face, the semblance of hair in soft waves around its face. “It doesn’t matter,” it said with a sigh, “When your father comes, he will send me away, and this will be over.”

Erla smiled. “He won’t send you away,” she assured him. The ranger would do the exact opposite. He was the guardian of the forest and all the spirits who lived there.

“He will,” the spirit said with certainty, “That is what fathers do. They send me away. Or they hurt me.” The spirit held out its skeletal hand again, turned it around and looked at it. “It doesn’t hurt anymore,” it said.

Erla held out her injured arm, let the spirit’s fingers of bone brush through the hard bump of her wrist. “It doesn’t hurt here,” she said, “This is a safe place, and you are welcome here, spirit.”

“Hel,” the spirit said, “My name was Hel.”  
  


**Author's Note:**

> I do love this little family, it's very nice to revisit them and check in on how they're doing. Thanks for the story idea AliaMael!


End file.
